Abi Carter has finally found happiness. Living in her
perfect tin miner’s cottage, she has good friends and a gorgeous boyfriend,
Max. Life is good. But all that’s about to change when a new neighbour moves in
next door.

Cassandra Henley-Pinkerton represents everything Abi thought
she’d escaped when she left London.
Obnoxious and stuck-up, Cassandra hates living in Cornwall. Worst
of all, it looks like she has her sights set on Max.

But Cassandra has problems of her own. Not only is her
wealthy married lawyer putting off joining her in their Cornish love nest, but
now someone seems intent on sabotaging her business.

Will Cassandra mellow enough to turn to Abi for help – or
are they destined never to get along?

Complete with sun, sea and a gorgeous Cornwall
setting, Abi’s Neighbour is the PERFECT summer escape.

Abi’s Neighbour can be read as a standalone
novel, or as a follow up to Abi’s House.

‘Oh, yes. So it is.’ Maggie paused, ‘Anyway, I’m sorry I’m late, I got
stuck behind a tractor down the lane.’ She jingled a key ring in front of her.
‘I have your keys, Miss Pinkerton.’

‘No, you don’t.’ ‘I don’t?’ The
estate agent frowned, looking away from the woman that stood before her in
expensive couture with crossed arms and a far from happy expression. Flicking
through the papers on her clipboard, Maggie said, ‘I was instructed by a Mr
Justin Smythe that you would be accepting the keys on his behalf?’

‘I meant, no, my name is not Miss Pinkerton. It is Ms Henley-Pinkerton.’

‘Oh. I see.’ Maggie refrained from further comment as she clutched the
keys a little tighter.

Determined to make sure the situation was clearly understood, Cassandra
pulled her jacket on, turning herself back into the sharp-suited businesswoman
she was. ‘In addition to your error regarding my name, there appears to have
been a further mistake.’

‘There has?’

‘Mr Smythe has not purchased this property. He has merely rented it,
with an additional agreement to sublet it as a holiday home. I am here for two
months to make the place suitable.’ Cassandra ran a disdainful eye over the
beautiful exterior stonework. ‘It would seem that my work is going to be well
and truly cut out.’

‘This is a much sought-after street, Ms HenleyPinkerton. And this
particular property is in excellent period condition.’ Feeling defensive on
behalf of the old miner’s cottage, Maggie bit her tongue and flicked through
her paperwork faster. Extracting a copy of the bill of sale, she passed it to
the slim, angular blonde. ‘I think the misunderstanding must be yours. Mr
Smythe has purchased number two Miners Row outright. It was a cash sale.’

Snatching the papers from Maggie’s fingers, Cassandra’s shoulders tensed
into painful knots. Why hadn’t Justin told her he’d done this? She was
convinced she was right. And anyway, he’d never deliberately make her appear
foolish in front of a country bumpkin estate agent… Yet as Cassandra scanned the document before
her, she could see there’d been no mistake. Closing her eyes, she counted to
ten, before opening them again to regard the badly dressed woman before her,
who was once again holding out the offending set of keys. Failing to take them, Cassandra gestured
towards the little house.

‘Perhaps you would show me around, after I’ve made a call to Mr Smythe?’
Maggie, already feeling sorry for this unpleasant woman’s future neighbours,
took unprofessional pleasure in saying, ‘Good luck with that call. The phone
signal here is unpredictable to say the least.’

It had taken a ten-minute walk
towards Sennen village to get a decent reception on her mobile phone, and then,
when she’d been able to connect the call, Justin’s line was engaged. When she’d
finally got through, she was more than ready to explode. ‘Justin! How could you
have done this to me without a word? You’ve made me look a total idiot.’

Clearly thrilled that he’d managed to buy the terrace for a knock-down
price – which, he’d claimed, was a far more economic use of their funds, an
investment that would make them a fortune to enjoy in their retirement – he’d
sounded so excited about what it meant for their future together that Cassandra
had found it hard to remain cross. Assuring her that the situation remained the
same, and that she was still only expected to stay in Cornwall while
he secured his new position and got the wheels of the divorce in motion, Justin
told Cassandra he loved her and would be with her very soon.

Returning to the terrace reassured, if lacking some of her earlier
dignity, Cassandra swallowed back all the words she’d have liked to say as she
opened the door and the gloom of the dark and narrow hallway enveloped her. She
was sure that awful Maggie woman had been laughing at her. The agent had taken
clear pleasure in telling her that if she hadn’t stormed off so quickly she’d
have found out that the phone reception was excellent if you sat on the bench in
the back garden.

Vowing to never drink champagne in any form ever again, as it clearly
caused her to agree to things far too readily, Cassandra saw the next two
months stretching out before her like a lifetime. Letting out some of the tension which had been
simmering inside her since she’d first seen the for sale sign, she picked up a
stone and threw it at the back fence, hard. Maggie had gone, leaving her
reluctant client sitting on an old weathered bench in the narrow rectangular
plot at the back of the house.

Playing her phone through her fingers, Cassandra saw that there was
enough reception to make calls if she sat in this spot – but only in this spot.
One step in either direction killed the signal dead, which was probably why the
previous owners had placed a bench here. And probably why they left this
Godforsaken place! The Internet simply
didn’t exist here. When she’d swallowed her pride and asked Maggie about the
strength of the local broadband coverage, the agent had actually had the
audacity to laugh, before informing Cassandra with obvious satisfaction that
people came to Sennen for their holidays to leave the world of emails and work
behind them.

Breathing slowly, she pulled her shoulders back, pushed her long,
perfectly straight blonde hair behind her ears, and took a pen and paper out of
her bag. It looked as if she was going to have to tackle this, old school.

First she would make a list of what she considered necessary to make the
house habitable for holidaymakers, then she would locate the nearest library or
internet café so she could source decorators and builders to get the work
underway. The sooner she got everything done, and herself back to hustle and
bustle of London, the
better.

Deciding there was no way she could sleep in this house, which Maggie
had proudly described as ‘comfortable’, ‘sought-after’, and ‘ready to be made
absolutely perfect’, Cassandra hooked her handbag onto her shoulder and headed
back into the whitewashed stone house. Shivering in the chill of the hallway, despite
the heat of the June day, she jumped in the silence when the doorbell rang just
as she bent to pick up her overnight bag. For a second she froze. It had been
years since she’d heard a doorbell ring. In her block of flats back home she
buzzed people in via an intercom, and anyway, people never just dropped by. She
hoped it wasn’t that dreadful Maggie back with some other piece of unwanted
advice.

It wasn’t Maggie. It was a petite woman in paint spattered clothes, with
a large shaggy dog at her side. Cassandra’s unwanted visitor wore a wide smile
and held a bunch of flowers in one hand and some bedding in the other. ‘Hello. My name’s Abi, I live next door.
Welcome to Miners Row. I hope you’ll be very happy here.’

Jenny Kane is the author of the full
length romance novels Another Glass of
Champagne (Accent Press, 2015), Abi’s
House (Accent Press, 2015), the contemporary romance/medieval crime time
slip novel Romancing Robin Hood
(Accent Press, 2014), the best selling contemporary romance novel Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press,
2013), and its novella length sequels Another
Cup of Christmas (Accent Press, 2013), Christmas
in the Cotswolds (Accent, 2014), and Christmas
at the Castle (Accent, 2015).

Jenny’s sixth full length romance
novel, Abi’s Neighbour, will be
published in May 2017.

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